Summer 2000 Program Recipients:

Laura Baffoni-Licata (Romance languages)
A revision of Italian 34, Masterpieces of Italian Literature III, is designed to encourage students to develop analytic and critical thinking skills through the examination and interpretation of major works of Modern Italian Literature and specifically Modern Italian Poetry from various theoretical standpoints.

Stephen Bailey (anthropology)
A new course, Extreme Environments, focuses on problems of biological adaptions to challenging environments including Arctic cold, high altitude, megacities, and outer space. Students gain an understanding of the scientific method through using empirical data to develop and test scientific theories and hypotheses.

Kerry Chase (political science)
A revision of Political Science 90G: Globalization and National Politics, that incorporates exercises and readings selected to encourage students to think analytically about questions of causality in the social sciences to assist them in acquiring and strengthening general critical thinking skills.

Patricia DiSilvio (Romance languages)
A revision of the language courses, Italian 3: Intermediate Italian, designed to encourage critical thinking in the study of foreign language and culture.

Lynn Frederiksen (drama and dance)
Canaries in the Mind: Digging for the Body in the Metaphor is a new "bodies-on" course that searches for origins of linguistic metaphors in the way the human body moves and relates to the world. Various aspects of the performing arts, including dance, theater, music and film, will be examined to highlight the relevance of metaphor and its impact on our perception and expression in our daily lives.

Jonathan Kenny (chemistry)
Critical Thinking in General Chemistry Courses for Scientists and Non-scientists is a teaches general chemistry from an environmental perspective. The goals are to create a more engaging introduction to the field, and to teach students the kinds of thinking that are crucial to doing science--the use of metaphor, the construction of models and hypotheses, the testing of hypotheses, inductive versus deductive reasoning.

Elizabeth Lemons (comparative religion)
A revision of Philosophy of Religion will encourage students to identify their own cultural and religious biases so that they can think clearly about topics in Western and Eastern religious traditions, including the relationship between faith and reason, the nature of ultimate reality, and the problem of suffering and evil, from diverse perspectives.

John McDonald (music)
A revision of Music 113, Seminar in Composition is a critical linking of logic and music that incorporates a collection of puzzles, paradoxes, and exercises that encourage composers to think and to write about all stages of the creative process.

Donna Mumme (psychology)
A new course, Early Socialization and Learning: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do, uses “popular press” media and scholarly research for a critical look at our thinking about early socialization..

Michael Reed (biology)
Critical Thinking about Environmental Topics , a revision of Environmental Biology and Conservation, incorporates regular breakout sessions focused on problem-solving and understanding and evaluating the social and ecological consequences of proposed solutions.


Past Program Participants:

2007  |  2006  |  2005  |  2004  |  2003  |  2002  |  2001  |  2000  |  1999

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